RESEARCH

Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.

George E. P. Box (1987)

Models tend to be useful when they are simultaneously simple enough to fit a variety of behaviors and complex enough to fit behaviors that need the help of an explanatory model.

Thomas C. Schelling (1978)

Research is formalised curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.

Zora Neale Hurston (1942)

Research Interests

• Topics: Cyberpsychology, Human information behaviour, Social and economic impacts of digital technologies

• Philosophy: My research trajectory concentrates largely on "3U"-- user information behavior, user cyberpsychology, and user-generated content. To this end, I attempt to adopt a full-cycle approach to moving my research forward. It begins with a certain "action" that raises my interest (i.e., user information behavior), followed by the "underlying mechanism" (i.e., user cyberpsychology) that allows me to explicate the action behaved by users, and finally looking into the outcome (i.e., user-generated content).

• Methodologies: I use mainly quantitative methods including experiments and surveys in my work. On occasion, I have used qualitative methods such as interviews, qualitative content analysis, and qualitative comparative analysis to complement my quantitative research. My skills do not include advanced forms of econometric modeling, simulation, or data mining. However, I am learning the basic knowledge and applications of economic analyses, such as difference-in-differences, instrumental variables, and regression discontinuity, as I believe that field (quasi-) experiment designs and causal inference will be increasingly popular in information behavior research. Also, I'm interested in design science research that relates to my study areas.

PhD Dissertation

• Chen, X. (2021). Study of Online Celebrities Who Sell Knowledge: Perceived Attractiveness and Users Willingness to Pay. Doctoral thesis, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. DOI: 10.32657/10356/152694

• Thesis Advisory Committee: Alton Chua (WKWSCI); L.G. Pee (WKWSCI); Joanna Sin (WKWSCI), Ben Choi (NBS)

• Slides for the oral defense: PPT Slides

• Best Dissertation Talk Award: ASIS&T SIG-KM International Research Symposium 2022

Refereed Monograph/Book Chapter

• Chen, X. (in progress). Attraction of Knowledge Celebrities. Routledge.

• Chen, X., & Chua, A. Y. (forthcoming). The role of influencer endorsements in users' willingness to pay for knowledge products: An empirical investigation. The Elgar Companion to Information Economics. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Refereed Journal Publications (* corresponding author)

• Chen, X*. (forthcoming). Investigating users’ sustained information seeking on academic social networking sites. Aslib Journal of Information Management.

• Chen, X*., Chua, A. Y., & Pee, L.G. (2022). Who sells knowledge online? An exploratory study of knowledge celebrities in China. Internet Research,32(3),916-942. [Coverage from Information Matters]

• Fu, S., Chen, X*., Zheng, H., & Ou, M. (2021). Understanding health information literacy of mHealth apps users from digital wellbeing perspective: Evidence from regression analysis and fsQCA. Library & Information Science Research, 43(3), 101108.

• Fu, S., Chen, X., & Deng, S*. (2021). Relating health information literacy self-efficacy to information technology use and health status: A large-scale study among Chinese undergraduates. Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science,44 (1): 38-69.

• Fu, S., Chen, X*., & Zheng, H. (2021). Exploring an adverse impact of smartphone overuse on academic performance via health issues: A stimulus-organism-response perspective. Behaviour & Information Technology,40 (7): 663-675 . (PPT Slides)

• Li, C., Chen, X*., & Bi, X*. (2021). Wearable activity trackers for promoting physical activity: A systematic meta-analytic review. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 152, 104487.

• Zhao, H., Fu, S., & Chen, X*. (2020). Promoting users’ intention to share health articles on social media: The role of confirmation bias. Information Processing & Management, 57 (6), 102354. (Note: authors have equal contribution; ASIS&T SIG SM Best Paper Award) (Recording of the presentation on YouTube) (PPT Slides)

• Chua, A.Y *., & Chen, X. (2020). Rumor retransmission on Twitter: Message characteristics, user characteristics and retransmission outcomes. Journal of Digital Information Management, 18 (1), 21-32.

• Lou, C., Tan, S. S., & Chen, X. (2019). Investigating consumer engagement with influencer-vs. brand-promoted ads: The roles of source and disclosure. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 19 (3):169-186.

• Chen, X*., Chua, A. Y., & Deng, S. (2018). Comparing the web and mobile platforms of a social Q&A service from the user’s perspective. Aslib Journal of Information Management, 70 (2):176-191.

• Deng, S., Lin, Y*., Liu, Y., Chen, X., & Li, H. (2017). How do personality traits shape information-sharing behaviour in social media? Exploring the mediating effect of generalized trust. Information Research, 22 (3): 1-37.

Selected Working Papers

• “Variance of economic returns among knowledge celebrities.”

• “Theorizing and validating the perceived attractiveness of knowledge celebrities.”

• “Users’ willingness to pay for knowledge products: pay-after-consumption vs. pay-before-consumption.”

• “An analysis of online fake news on social media.”

• “Searching as learning in online medical Q&A sites.”

• "Motivation crowding of knowledge contribution in academic social networking sites."

Refereed Conference Papers/Poster

• Chua, A.Y., & Chen, X. (2022). Online “helpful” lies: An empirical study of helpfulness in fake and authentic online reviews. In Proceedings of 17th International Conference on Information (iConference 2022): pp. 91-99.

• Chen, X., & Chua, A. Y. (2021). Exploring the perceived attractiveness of online celebrities who sell knowledge: A self-branding perspective. In Proceedings of 84th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T 2021): pp. 60-69.

• Chua, A. Y., & Chen, X. (2021). Analyzing readers' responses to fake news on Facebook. In Proceedings of 84th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T 2021): pp. 694-696.

• Zheng, H., Chen, X., & Fu, S. (2020). An exploration of determinants of cyberchondria: A moderated mediation analysis. In Proceedings of 83rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T 2020).

• Chen, X., & Chua, A. Y. (2020). Reviewing the landscape of research on influencer-generated content. In Proceedings of 6th International Conference on Information Management (ICIM 2020): pp. 244-248. IEEE.

• Zheng, H., Chen, X., & Duan, X. (2019). An overview of altmetrics research: A typology approach. In Proceedings of 21st International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL 2019): pp. 33-39. Springer, Cham.

• Chen, X.,& Zheng, H. (2019). Who sells knowledge online? Understanding online identities of knowledge influencers on a pay-for-knowledge platform. Paper presented at the 17th Chinese Internet Research Conference (CIRC 2019): June 28, 2019: National University of Singapore, Singapore. (PPT Slides)

• Chen, X., Lou, C., & Fu, S. (2018). Analyzing high-quality social media discussion content: an information-seeking and sense-making approach. Paper presented at the 68th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA 2018), Prague, Czech Republic.

• Lou, C., Tan, S.S., & Chen, X. (2018). Mining influencer marketing messages: investigating consumer responses to brand- vs. influencer-generated ads. In Proceedings of the American Academy of Advertising Annual Conference (AAA 2018): New York, USA.

• Kong, W. Y., Chen, X., Bañas Alvarez, K., Ho, S. S., & Cummings, C. L. (2017). Exploring the impacts of food technology beliefs, evaluations, and media consumption on attitudes toward nanofood in Singapore. Paper presented at 6th Annual International Conference on Journalism & Mass Communications (JMComm 2017), Singapore.

Refereed Workshop Papers

• Chen, X., & Fu, S. (2019). Who sells knowledge to you? Understanding online identities of knowledge influencers on a pay-for-knowledge platform. Paper presented at the 13th China Summer Workshop on Information Management (CSWIM 2019): June 29-30, 2019: Shenzhen, China.